Chapter 1B: Collaring Day
She took the long way home so she would have more time to think, more time wearing her new collar and more time to think with the collar on. She wondered if there would be a difference when she took it off. For one thing, she hoped her thoughts would be more coherent than they were now. While driving almost on autopilot, her mind danced and twirled. Any ideas that came into view flitted away before they could be caught and absorbed.
She had the car heater on high even though the sun was out and it was a fairly warm day. She was shaking and shivering almost uncontrollably and she felt chilled to the bone. She put her hand on her cheek but found both were actually warm. She chuckled when she realized that her bum was pretty warm, too. Giving a mental shrug, she put it all down to being overtired on top of the physical aftermath of good sex. The trembling notwithstanding, she felt calm, subdued almost, something like last night. Her mind wandered back and she tried yet again to put a finger on it. All through the long night at work before, she had felt a strangeness, relaxed, yet different. It was almost as if her mind had let go of any solidness and just drifted asea. She hadn't been able to concentrate enough to read the novel she had taken to work so she spent the whole night flipping through a magazine, not remembering any of it. Nor could she remember any one thing she had thought about. She performed her duties as an automaton and just got through the night. It was a good thing Master hadn't asked for another story: who knows what kind of gobbledygook would have been turned out.
Try as she might, she wasn't able to come up with an explanation for the weird feelings. She had been so excited, so eager waiting for this day and here she was, a lump of non-emotion. The closest scenario she could come up with was when she wrote for her Personal Trainer certification. The course and the studying had been difficult. For the last two weeks before the final test, she hardly slept, hardly ate; all energy was focused on the material and the desire to do well. The night before, she had been subdued, relaxed and almost numb. She knew that she had finished all the work, studying and preparations to the best of her ability and then had to just trust in herself to do well.